


The Creation of Man

by TrollSweat



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Uther, M/M, Masturbation, Modern Era, Painting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:13:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29089593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrollSweat/pseuds/TrollSweat
Summary: Uther's dreams have been plagued by a mysterious figure, which he sets out to capture on canvas.
Relationships: Uther the Lightbringer/Arthas Menethil
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	The Creation of Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abominable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abominable/gifts), [Khadgarfield](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khadgarfield/gifts).



> Here is...this. 
> 
> Written as a prompt fill for a weekly challenge with friends, the prompt was "Painting".
> 
> First time I've written Uther, and I hope I did him some justice lmfao
> 
> Also, no edit or beta, just take it how it is :)))

Uther gripped the paintbrush between his teeth and took a step back from the canvas, stretching his arm across his chest to ease the ache in his shoulder. A glance at the clock told him that he had been painting for thirteen hours straight without a break, or even a sip of his coffee, which sat in a white china mug, cold and neglected on the wooden stool behind him.

His leg twinged at the sight of the stool; he hadn’t even sat down since he’d picked up his palette that morning. With a sigh, he dropped his brush into the jar of turpentine on his desk, and picked up the mug so he could slowly lower himself onto the chair, grunting as his leg gave out under him.

Age had not been kind to his joints, arthritis had ravaged the cartilage of his hip and knee the worst, and standing still for such long periods was only exacerbating the problem. He massaged at the limb, making a mental note to visit the pharmacy, and pick up stronger pain killers the next time he went out for groceries.

Though, he wasn’t too sure when that would be. His routine of the past few weeks had been to wake up, wash and dress, make himself a coffee, and paint. For almost three months he had done nothing but work on the canvas before him, which stood an intimidating seven foot high and three feet wide. Rather, it would have been intimidating, had he not painstakingly crafted it himself, a frame made from pine, and the finest duck cotton he could afford.

It had taken him two days just to mix the pigments, mixing colours for hours until he was satisfied with the rainbow of hues before him, crafted from scratch from powders and oils he scarce could afford. But his vision demanded it, nothing but the best would suffice, not for this, his pièce de résistance, the grandest work he would ever create. Perhaps, even, the last work he would ever create. 

And it _consumed_ him.

Day and night, he thought of little else. His days were spent in the attic, his studio, stood before his colossal canvas, possessed by something he could not name, something that drove him to despair some days, when his hands would not cooperate and the paint smeared into mud beneath his brush. 

He worked from dawn until dusk, and only stopped to hastily shove a chunk of cheese and slice of bread into his mouth, and down a glass of water before he took himself to bed.

He used to enjoy the art, the process of creation, of finding a muse and a spark of inspiration, making sketches and notes, and selecting his paints. He used to relish the way the bristles of his brushes would scoop the paint from his wooden palette in thick globules, and spread over the surface of the stretched canvas like flower petals blooming from buds of pigmented oils.

It was therapeutic, once, to sketch out a landscape or a portrait, and fill it with colour, to use his hands and bring forth life from two-dimensional space.

But not anymore. 

Now it filled him with anguish when his vision would refuse to come too light. He would tilt his head slightly, scrutinise his work from a different angle, try to evaluate what additions he should make, what to edit and alter, what areas would benefit from deeper shadows and brighter highlights.

It needed to be _perfect._

His dreams, as of late, had been haunted by a figure with a voice that whispered his name, low and saccharine sweet, with peals of laughter that rang like bells in Uther’s head. Even in wakefulness, Uther could picture the figure as clear as day, burned as it was into the back of his eyelids. The figure, a… man? Barely. Rather… a boy, no more than twenty, lithe and pale with a cascade of silver-blonde hair.

And naked. Always naked, except for a shroud of sheer gauze that flowed around him in a gentle breeze, only just enough to offer him some modesty as he stood bathed in cold, pale light. He would reach out, offer his palm, and smile. Just what he offered, Uther was not sure, but each time he reached to take the hand in his own, he woke up, left with nothing but a hollow ache in his chest, and the memory of a fine boned face, with eyes like burning ice.

Uther glanced at the eyes he had captured in cerulean and cobalt, then quickly had to look away, as the intensity of the gaze he had captured almost seemed to look through him, not at him, or even into the middle distance he had intended. They seemed to follow him around the room, burned holes into the back of his head when he turned away, and nothing he did seemed to lessen the prickling sensation that creeped up the nape of his neck and over his scalp

He had tried to cover the painting with a cloth, turn it to face the wall, even placed it in another room entirely. But each and every time, he had found the canvas returned to it’s easel in the attic, like it had never moved in the first place. Uther woke once in the night, to find that it had been himself retrieving the painting all along. He had been sleepwalking, only to set the canvas back where it belonged.

He had stopped trying after that, just left the room and shut the door when he was done, ate his measly dinner, and crashed onto his mattress to once again dream of the man.

He had lost weight since the dreams began, he knew. His limbs lost the definition of muscle, years of labour as a mason, lost over the course of a few weeks as he spent every waking hour staring at the cream and ochre flesh captured in oil paints, that gleamed where they were fresh on the stretched cotton, and that Uther knew would be wet for months to come.

He raked a hand through his hair, which had been a rich auburn. It was now streaked with grey, and hung lank about his gaunt features. Same for his beard, which he had once been so proud of, now overgrown and peppered with white, only his moustache retained the deep copper colour his facial hair had once held.

The painting looked at him, and Uther could not help but glance up to meet its mocking, almost contemptuous gaze. He had been sure that he had painted those eyes as warm, that he had given the figure the soft open smile it wore in his dreams. He was sure he had not made them into the sharp and cruel leer that surveyed him from above. But he feared too much their rebuke should he attempt to change them, left them as they were, for the colours were perfection he knew he would never be able to recreate.

He was so close to the end, he could feel it. Every square inch of the canvas was coated with paint, the figure itself could have stepped out of his dream and lay itself upon the easel, the detail he had given it’s two-dimensional counterpart. He had painted each hair strand by strand, added the subtlest of blushes to it’s skin, carefully placed the light sprinkle of freckles one by one, until the figure came into a facsimile of life.

Uther’s eyes burned, his body screamed for rest as he sat and pondered, raking his eyes over the canvas for what was missing. His eyes travelled from the figure’s hair, cascading over its shoulder, down the long length of an arm, which curled across its torso where the flush of a pink nipple peeked from beneath. The other arm stretched out towards the observer, the hand relaxed, palm upward, the fingertips curled just slightly. It was a gesture to trust, to take the hand and be led wherever the figure would lead.

Uther’s gaze dropped quickly from there, down past the gauze he had deigned to add for his own peace of mind, although what lay beneath he had painted in excruciating detail, the blush and shadow some of his finest work in the piece. 

The figure’s legs were long and lean, one hip cocked, the entire pose made him look almost coy. Uther wasn’t sure why he had decided on that particular configuration of limbs, but there was no changing it now, not when a few more strokes of his brush would mean the painting was complete.

He swept his gaze once more over the canvas. Then again. And once more. But try as he might, he couldn’t shake the temptation, and his eyes flicked to the gauze covered appendage, as shame burned his cheeks and flushed them red. 

What he had painted had been modest in size, but beautifully formed, hanging soft over a pair of firm testicles in between the figures slightly parted thighs. The sheer fabric he had painted over it did little to hide the shape and size, and the soft pink of the blushed head peeked through the translucent layers. It was one of the few more colourful areas on the canvas, scarlet mixed with cream to create the perfect imitation of blood beneath flesh.

Uther found he could not draw his eye away. In some ways, he thought it more erotic, the simulation of modesty, and imagined himself peeling back the gauze to reveal the treasure beneath, or like he were lifting a veil to revealing the face of his bride on his wedding day.

Except it wasn’t the face of a woman that he desired to see, it was the cock of a young man. A young man that Uther had only ever seen in his _dreams_.

Before he realised, he had unfastened the button and zip of his jeans, and slid a hand beneath the waistband of his underwear, gripped his cock and pulled it free. He was brought back to awareness by the sudden chill ghosting over the wet and leaking tip.

He was ashamed to think that he had done this often, recently. He was ashamed to admit that the painted figure… the man that he had crafted with his own hand, was perhaps the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He was ashamed that in his lifetime, nothing had brought him arousal, until he had seen _his_ face in sleep.

He usually did this in his bed, under the covers in the dark, where he could pretend that if he couldn’t see himself, couldn’t see the movement of his hand working his cock, then he had not truly partaken in the act. Though the hot slick spilling into his hand, and the tremors that wracked his body during, were evidence enough, and it was with with a sigh and a choked sob that he would crawl out from under his blankets, to wash his hands and face in the bathroom sink and return to bed, only to once more look upon the face of his tormentor.

So, to look down at his lap and find himself exposed was… somewhat disturbing. He could not remember the motions, had only felt the cool of the air and the heat of his palm on his cock as he stroked himself with a tight fist. But it felt… good, physically at least. His fingers worked pre-cum from the slit down the shaft, which lubricated and eased the friction of his hand, finding he could stroke faster without discomfort.

It was as he stroked himself that he had the revelation, though what possessed him to act on it he would never know. Just the mere thought of it had the first hot sparks of orgasm flutter at the base of his spine, and spread upward and outward, down his limbs with a pleasant tingle. As he neared completion, he gripped the base of his cock tight, then heaved himself from the stool, limping slightly as he approached the easel.

This time, as he looked upon the ethereal grace before him, he really, truly looked. He examined the face, studied the shadows beneath the collarbones, took a moment to inspect the stiff peak of the nipple captured in oils. He raised a hand to his own and rubbed at it through the fabric of his paint covered shirt, feeling it harden under his touch. He pinched it between his fingers, as let himself stare down resolutely at the cock before him.

He imagined what it would feel like to touch, wondered if the texture and weight would be similar to his own. Would the skin move like velvet over the shaft as it stiffened, would the head emerge from the foreskin itself, or require a helping hand to release, to roll the skin down, contained within a fist.

He wondered what it would taste like against his lips, would it be bitter and salty, similar at all to the one and only time he had dared bring his own spend to his mouth out of curiosity. Would his mouth have to stretch wide to accommodate the girth, or would it sit on his tongue like a comforting weight.

The hand on his nipple slid up over his chest and neck, scraped through the coarse hairs of his beard to rub over his lips. His fingertips pushed between them, and he took two fingers into his mouth, sucking at them as he simulated the action of oral pleasure on his hand.

His own cock twitched as he pressed down on his tongue, and the hand around his sped up, jerking short and sharp over the head. It was with a grunt and a shudder that he came, head thrown back in ecstasy and back arched, his seed splattering across the canvas in thick white that hung like fat raindrops on the surface of the oils.

The fingers slipped from his mouth, and he slumped, hanging his head to take several deep breaths to calm himself, as he worked his cock through the wracking aftershocks, milking himself until the cum stopped dripping from his slit. Then he looked up to see what he had done. 

He had not aimed himself as he came, but had managed to spurt cum upwards none-the-less, high enough to land on the doll-like features of the figure’s face. He reached out with a trembling hand to touch his fingertips to a drop that had landed perfectly central on the plush lower lip, and dipped a digit into it, to spread it over the figure’s mouth like a crude gloss.

The paint mixed with the cum, the rose petal colour taking on a sheen the likes Uther had never seen before. It was enchanting, catching the light just so, that the lips glittered. They looked almost alive. He could have sworn he saw them part ever so slightly, a brief flash of tongue flicking out to lick at them. Uther shook his head, and stepped back. When he looked once more, the painting hadn’t changed, still gazed out through him with it’s piercing blue irises.

‘ _Sleep_ ,’ he thought, hastily tucking himself back into his jeans, ‘ _I’m hallucinating, I just need sleep_.’ He turned and walked from the room, flicking off the lights and closing the door behind him without a backwards glance.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a part two at some point, but this part works as a standalone so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
